Diane Ravitch Wants Philanthropy to Support Rebirth of Public Schools

Education expert Diane Ravitch (Image credit: Diane Ravitch)

Philanthropy aimed at K-12 education in the U.S. has ramped up in the past few decades and remains complex and controversial. Funders back diverse causes like delivering new learning technologies, establishing charter schools and backing professional development for public school teachers, among many others. Along with local and regional funders, major philanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates, Broad and Walton Family Foundations direct hundreds of millions to education annually.

Diane Ravitchsays these funders should prioritize helping under-resourced American learning institutions and families by supporting traditional public schools and their teachers, and addressing income inequality. She discussed these topics as well as funding for girls and the pitfalls of charter schools with Philanthropy Women. Ravitch is an education author and historian and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education. She is currently a research professor of Education at New York University and president of the Network for Public Education, which she founded.

Ravitch on Addressing American Inequality

“Our society is reaching a very dangerous
moment because of the vast increase in income inequality and wealth inequality…
The richest are getting very rich, while many in the middle class are one
paycheck removed from poverty,” Ravitch says. She thinks a higher minimum wage
and greater investments in public schools, teachers’ salaries and public health
services are necessary.

Some of the related philanthropic causes she
believes in are reducing class size, protecting student privacy, women’s reproductive health and rights,
civil liberties and social justice. Ravitch has also previously upheld universal PreK as
a way to “make school a stronger equalizer than it is today.” She mentions the
Network for Public Education, Class Size Matters, Parents Coalition for Student
Privacy, Planned Parenthood, American Civil Liberties Union, People for the
American Way, Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center as
organizations working in some of the fields she cares most about.

How Can Women Donors Fund Girls’ Education?

Ravitch shares some thoughts and advice
specific to women donors and supporting girls.

“[Invest] in prenatal health services, so that
pregnant women are healthy and give birth to healthy children. That directly
affects women and children,” she says. And, she suggests supporting groups that
advocate “for play and healthy child development in the early years,” such as
Defending the Early Years, an advocacy group that is primarily composed of
women.

Ravitch also believes funding arts programs in public schools can benefit girls (and all children), so they “have the opportunity to sing, dance, sculpt, act and perform.” She recalls visiting a high school “long famed in Pittsburgh for the musicians who graduated there that no longer had funding for uniforms or instruments.” Ravitch notes that Bette Midler gives funding to help schools repair performance spaces, and Tony Bennett funds the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City. Another example is Funny Girls, a philanthropic investment by the Harnisch Foundation in NYC that employs improv techniques to build girls’ leadership skills in public after-school programs.

Along with creative expression, helping girls
and young women explore STEM fields, in which they are
underrepresented, is another popular avenue for funders who want to support
their learning and empowerment. Of course, there are many ways to help girls experience
educational success, including mentoring; seeking girls’ input and leadership
in school and community decision making; addressing bullying and rigid gender
norms; promoting LGBTQ+ rights; and ending sexual violence, sex trafficking, child marriage and
female genital mutilation. And
philanthropy that works to reduce student debt and the gender pay gap
can open more doors for women as they move through higher education and enter
the workforce.

Funding Public Schools Over Charters as a
Civil Rights Issue

Ravitch is a fierce advocate for traditional
public schools. While charter schools vary widely in design and culture,
Ravitch describes them as a whole as “a very bad investment for many reasons.
The sector is highly unstable. Charters close almost as rapidly as they open.”

Ravitch acknowledges that some have high test
scores, but she thinks this apparent success lies largely in their ability to
“cherry pick” and expel students at will. And she points out that most charter
schools do not perform better than public ones, and some perform worse, saying,
“It is now widely acknowledged that charter schools don’t get better results than
public schools, so what is the point?”

Equitable public education has long been a civil rights issue. Ravitch says, “Charters are an affront to civil rights causes.” She points out that these schools are more socially and racially segregated than their public counterparts and that many exclude certain groups of students, including those who have disabilities or who don’t speak English as their first language. For those who’d like to dive deeper, many of the studies documenting these trends, as well as other charter school features and controversies, are discussed in this 2015 Washington Postarticle covering a National Education Policy Center report of the same year.

The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) and Black Lives Matter have
called for a moratorium on new charters, due to some of the reasons mentioned
above. Ravitch sees charters as “pathway to vouchers” and, like the NAACP, she
opposes school vouchers and privatization. She says public education is a civic
obligation, not a “consumer choice.” She previously said “every neighborhood should
have a good public school,” and that parents who then choose a private school
“should pay for it.”

Public School Philanthropy

Ravitch mentions the Dalios’ move to support Connecticut
public schools rather than its charters — a move inspired by Barbara Dalio’s
experience volunteering in schools — as a powerful example of pro-public
school philanthropy. She also lists Marc Benioff of Salesforce and the Sherwood
and Schott Foundations as philanthropists and philanthropies who have backed
public education, adding that there are countless other individuals and
organizations involved. The Schott Foundation recently launched a #PublicSchoolGrad media campaign
and scholarship to “highlight the positive outcomes from our nation’s public
schools and students.”

Speaking of positive outcomes, Ravitch has said in the past that American
public education “is a huge success,” in terms of improvement in key metrics
like test scores and high school graduation rates over time.

“Where there are low test scores, where there are higher dropout rates than the national average, is where there is concentrated poverty,” she said, again underscoring the need to address economic inequality.

Ravitch describes philanthropy for public
schools as advocacy “on behalf of a state and national commitment to equality
of educational opportunity, and a rebirth of great American public schools.”

The kind of philanthropy that most inspires
Ravitch is “not self-aggrandizing,” like the Kalamazoo Promise, wherein
anonymous donors pledged to pay state college tuition for everyone who
graduates from Kalamazoo public schools in Michigan.

For philanthropists who are interested in directing funding to public schools, Ravitch suggests taking a firsthand, receptive approach, much as Barbara Dalio did in Connecticut. “Support public schools by visiting them [and] spending time getting to know what they need. Volunteer. Every school has different needs.”

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Philanthropy Women covers funding for gender equity in all sectors of society. We want to significantly shift public discourse, particularly in philanthropy, toward increased action for gender equality. You can support our work and access unlimited and premium content with one of our subscriptions.

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Author: Julia Travers

I often cover innovations in science, the arts and social justice. Find my work with NPR, Discover Magazine, APR and Earth Island Journal, among other publications. My portfolio is at jtravers.journoportfolio.com.
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